CASE STUDY: A HEALTHIER LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: JUST PLAIN SMART MARKETING

Client:

Assignment:

Develop and validate a new brand position for Orkin ahead of the 2009 launch of a new pest management service offering for schools.

Strategy/Implementation:

Through research, we found that U.S. schools are moving steadily toward more environmentally friendly pest management, often by local government mandate.  With that in mind, Jackson Spalding worked with Orkin to develop the following brand position, designed to support the future rollout of a new, “greener” service offering for K-12 schools:

Orkin is a credible, knowledgeable and responsible provider of school IPM services.

To validate and promote this new brand position, Jackson Spalding developed a program called Junior Pest Investigators, a series of free K-6 lessons and assessment resources available to teachers at www.juniorpi.com. Junior Pest Investigators encourages teachers and students across the country to uncover the essentials of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a greener pest management approach especially well suited to schools.  We engaged a professional educational writer with experience in IPM education to ensure all Junior Pest Investigators materials were based on National Science Standards and Best Practice Instructional Strategies. JS Creative branded the program, designing the logo, website and all curriculum materials. To add credibility to the educational effort, we assembled an advisory council of national, third-party experts in school IPM to be part of the curriculum development from the start.

The Jackson Spalding team promoted Junior Pest Investigators to K-12 science teachers through:

• Exhibitions and focus groups at the annual conferences of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Georgia Science Teachers Association. 
• Email campaign to lists of NSTA members gathered at the conferences above and previous conferences.
• Advertising in NSTA’s Science & Children magazine.
• Online media relations targeting education-focused blogs and websites.
• Grassroots marketing via viral email campaign and Advisory Council newsletters/internal publications

We further incentivized participation by hosting a “Mission Possible” contest among teachers who completed class projects as part of the Junior P.I. curriculum, with the winning school receiving a $2,500 science-education grant and a Junior Pest Investigators “learning library.”

Results:

In under a year, JuniorPI.com had more than 22,000 unique visitors and nearly 800 teachers registered as users of the Junior Pest Investigators curriculum, providing Orkin with a credible and compelling track record of IPM advocacy to support its new IPM service for schools in 2009.

“We see the Orkin Man around school once a month and the kids wonder why.  [Junior Pest Investigators] helped them understand he’s doing prevention and we can help – we can work together.  When the contest came up they saw Orkin wants to help schools even more.  It really gave kids a better understanding of what Orkin does.”

Carol Schnaiter, Teacher
Amboy Central Elementary School, Amboy, Ill.
Second Place Winner
Junior Pest Investigators “Mission Possible” Class Project Contest